Farewell Beijing

Thursday evening me & my roommates all went to dinner together for the first (and only) time in the 3 weeks I lived in Beijing.  In true Chinese fashion we went to a Korean BBQ place.

I don't know how Korean BBQ works where you live, but in China you get your own personal chef who leans over the table and cooks all your meat for you.  If the heat gets too low on the grill, the coals guy comes with more coals.  If you want hot sauce the hot sauce guy brings it over.  Etc.  And they play Gangam Style over and over like it's the last song on earth.  Mt roommates are from Hong Kong, Columbia and Holland.

On my last day of classes I took a couple of class photos.  Everyone was very patient and accommodated me.

My classmates are from Italy, Austria, Russia and Spain.

My last lunch in Beijing (because how can I blog without talking about food?) - donkey and duck:

And finally, from the welcome party on a rooftop patio on Bar Street in Sanlitun:

Iris and Tosca (Holland and Germany, respectively) enjoying DIONE'S CHOCOLATES in China.

Ian and Arthur enjoying too much beer.  I would regret this the next day, when I had to get up early for a train ride to Luoyang.

Travel Day

Today I'm taking the "fast train" from Beijing to Luoyang.  I'm just packing up and about to set out on a quest for Beijing West Railway Station.  I had a dream yesterday that I was late and missed the train, so I'm leaving plenty of time.

Last night was the "welcome party" for the new Hutong students.  So I was out late and am a bit hung over this morning.  Hopefully it won't have too much of an impact on my 4 hour train journey.  I'll post pics when I arrive in Luoyang.

Misc. Food (everyone's favourite topic)

This is a curry beef dish from Wagas, a nice restaurant/cafe in Sanlitun Village:

This is my Chinese friend Arthur ordering dinner.  It took 2 fuwuyuan to take his order (no doubt due to the difficulties understanding his southern accent).
 

Here is the dinner.  Note the piles of chilies in everything, even the vegetables:

Sometimes the food is so good I forget to take a picture for my blog:

This morning I decided to treat myself to a good coffee (as opposed to the instant I've been drinking for the past 3 weeks).  There is a Starbucks in Sanlitun Village but I just couldn't do it!  So I went to Wagas and paid 30RMB for a latte, about the same price as I would pay in Canada.  As you would expect this place was full of foreigners.

I asked the fuwuyuan "中文 latte 怎么说？" ("How do you say latte in Chinese?") and she muttered something unintelligable and pointed at the menu, but I later figured out myself that it's called "拿铁" ("na tie").

I happened to stumble across the CCTV tower

Yesterday I went searching for an electronics store to buy a new phone, or an electronic dictionary.  I'm looking for something small and portable that can run Pleco.  (This is the dictionary/translation program most of the students at school use.  It's super handy, you can draw a character and it will recognize it and give you the definition and some sample sentences.  Much more convenient than my little Oxford Pocket Dictionary.  I  run it on my tablet (and since it took so long for me to write this post I now run it on my new Android phone as well).  Here's what it looks like:

Having it on a phone is a heck of a lot more convenient than dragging around my tablet.  Anyways ... :-))

I walked around the corner and stumbled across the new CCTV tower:

The CCTV tower was designed by the famous architect Rem Hoolhaas, who also happened to design the Seattle Public Library (one of my favourite buildings).  Since China is a totalitarian regime and resistant to change, he designed the building so it would look different from every angle, to represent the forces of change in China (or something like that).

Architecture in Beijing is very interesting.  There isn't a building that is just a building.  Check out this collection I saw in my very limited stroll while looking for my new phone:

The last one has the sun peeking through the smog.  The day of my walk the pollution count hit 310 (the highest so far of my stay - it's since dropped below 200).

And here are a couple of shops I found.

Remember "Dolar Store" (that turned out to be a fancy restaurant)?  This is a real dollar store (everything under 9.9RMB, about $1.50).

Ever wonder why there are 1.5 billion Chinese?  There's one of these on pretty much every corner.  I haven't worked up the nerve to go inside yet.

Chinese slogans.  These are EVERYWHERE.

Beijing Pollution (Part 2)

The pollution count in Beijing today is a balmy 241 (yesterday the max reported was 280), so this is me on my way to school today.  Although you don't need to check the internet to see the pollution, just look out the window:

- Blue skies, no problem
- Skyline is fuzzy, probably still ok
- Buildings across the street are starting to look hazy (i.e. today), pollution mask
- Can't see buildings across the street???  Stay home!  (It was this bad in January when the pollution count topped 950.  Google for pictures, it's frightening!)
 

北京烤鸭 (Peking Duck) - yum!

Tonight we all went out for Peking Duck (or "bei jing kao ya" as we all it here in China).  The duck was served pre-sliced, however it included the head.  I didn't try it, but Arthur did!  Pineapple beer = ok, beef balls urinating = ok, but I just couldn't bring myself to crunch on a duck head.

If you haven't tried Peking Duck, you wrap the meat and crispy skin in a sort of pancake, with veggies and sauce.  You can dip the skin in sugar, but I didn't try that either!  I guess I'm getting less adventurous :-S

今天北京的污染很大！

Today I learned a new word, and that word is "污染" ("wu ran"), which means POLLUTION.

And today the pollution in Beijing was much higher than it has been in recent days.  It was recorded at around 250 during the day.  For my friends back in Toronto, a bad day is over 40, which is when they start recommending people to stay home.  I haven't yet used my pollution mask but if it's this bad again tomorrow I will.  I could smell the air distinctly when I was outside today.

As an aside, one of the other students here told me he didn't think the pollution masks were much good.  When he was in the army they did a test with gas masks and tear gas, and as long as there's any crack at all "you'll be breathing tear gas".  However I'll give my mask a try and let you know.  And post pics of me in my mask!

Speaking of pics check out today vs about a week ago.  This is the view from my school.

Great Wall Hike - Jiankou (Part 1)

Today we hiked along the Great Wall of China.  No big deal.  And popped open a Pineapple Beer to celebrate.

We hiked along a section called Jiankou, which is about 80 km from Beijing, not heavily visited by tourists, and very much in a state of disrepair.  It's not actually open to the public, so I'm not sure what strings Hutong School had to pull.  You can read more about it here:  http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiankou.  This section was built during the Ming dynasty.

We started out by getting lost, so it took about 3 hours to get to the site.  It was a pretty challenging climb, but the views were amazing.  I've got a few days worth of pictures so don't be surprised if you see a few blog posts on this one!

You usually hear that the was was built to keep out the Huns, but in fact I've heard that it was more of a symbol of Chinese strength than for any actual practical purpose.  \and they kept the Huns from attacking through bribery.  They'd gift each of the Hun tribes silks, horses, women etc every year, and in this way prevent them from attacking the Chinese and also lure them into a trading relationship.  This jibes with our trip, because we actually approached from the North (the Hun side) and scaled The Wall using a simple ladder!

In June I've signed up for another wall trip, this time with http://wildwall.com.  This includes guided hikes along remote sections of the wall.  I'll be doing this towards the end of my trip, just before I return home to Canada.

Great Wall Hike - Jiankou (Part 2 more pics)

北京市，鬼街 (Ghost Street, Beijing)

Here in Beijing my apartment is right on Ghost Street.  This is one of the most well known areas in Beijing for restaurants.  There is about a 3 block stretch of Dongzhimen Jie (street name) of wall-to-wall restaurants.  Outside of each restaurant red lanterns are strung across the sidewalk, and at night it is quite a spectacular sight.  The photos above don't do it justice at all.  You can get all kinds of food here, and I've already posted a number of pictures.  I have one more week in Beijing so expect a lot more.

The restaurant area is actually known as 簋街 ("gui jie", or "food vessel street").  This sounds similar to 鬼街 ("gui jie", or "ghost street") so most people just call the area Ghost Street.  This kind of pun is the basis for humour in Chinese.

It's a common sight to see the restaurant crew doing some kind of routine at the beginning of the day.  Either they'll be getting a pep talk from the manager, or doing some kind of exercise routine.  I even saw one crew doing Gangam Style with full music blaring.  I see something different pretty much every day.  I think this is a good idea and it's something I'm going to try to introduce in Canada.  For example at Sierra Systems, each of the Practices can start the day with a different routine.  Next time I talk to the VP Solutions I'll suggest this and they she cam implement it in each of the Practices!